The City government of Seattle has voted unanimously to raise the minimum wage in the city to $15/hour to be done is a number of stages over the next few years. College students seem to realize that such increases could be a threat to current and longer term job prospects. According to the College Fix:
OPINION: Students and recent grads will take the back of the employment line under a steep wage increase One of my professor’s favorite pieces of advice in “Intro to Politics,” designed for freshmen political science majors and those looking for a quick social science credit, is ominously relevant: “If you’re about to graduate, you had better take that job offer at that GAP back home.”
While no fresh graduate wants to end up back at home working at the GAP in the strip mall near the local elementary school, that’s the trajectory that the current job market is headed.
Given that the Seattle economy is highly dependent on large consumer product companies and Boeing, this could make an interesting case study of the effects of the minimum wage, especially if there is a large setback for those companies in the years ahead.
